It would be easy to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today.
It would be easy to tie his actions and words to actions and words today.
It would be easy to say what he would and would not have approved of.
That's really not what today should be about.
What this holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, should be about is what we are going to do to make America a better nation.
There is no standard here. This is no living up to a legacy. There is no anointing a cause. There are the actions and words of a man who fought to bring a measure of equality and dignity to others of his race by challenging the system of privilege and prejudice that even The Civil War could not erase. His words, if they can be considered to have effect, are not things to be etched on glass or stone; they are missives to be taken into the heart and mind, to push the body forward to action when it sees injustice.
It would be easy to debate what the man would think of what we see today, but we cannot know. The assassin who struck him down deprived us of that opinion. To infer from what we know, is to claim a knowledge of the inner workings of the mind that is impossible to countenance. He has left us and his thoughts are free to fall where they may.
It isn't important to attempt to wind Dr. King around the events of today, only to see his influence in allowing them to happen. If "Black Lives Matter" has risen from the pain and suffering that was the death of Trayvon Martin and so many others like him, it is more important that that movement find its own voice and fly by its own power than be yoked to Dr. King. The man laid down the path, much as Jesus did, and asked us to walk it with him and to keep walking it after he was gone. That is what the day is about.
Demonstrate. Help. Donate. Read. Pray. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Lift up the downtrodden. Demand justice. Lift your voice. Stand up. Do whatever you can, but do it. Honor Dr. King, not by reliving his life, but by living it in your own way.
He was the way. He was the light. Take up the lamp. Walk the path. He will walk with you.
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2016
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Tis The Season
Winter has always been a season that casts stark relief on human life. In many places on the globe, deciduous trees have shed their leaves, leaving only the evergreens to maintain silent vigil in snow blanketed forests. Ice encrusts streams and lakes and even rivers, hiding the once warm and gentle waters under crystal armor. The rolling hills and valleys, once verdant, are now stark and white, and life, while still around, hides from the bitter cold. It is as if the Earth is taking a rest, catching its breath, preparing and plotting for the year to come.
It is no wonder that humankind, over the centuries, regarded Winter as a magical and holy time of year. For it marked the calm before the storm, the riot of growth and life and beauty that would come with melting snow and ice. Given the cold and bleak landscape, is it any wonder that people found reason to celebrate? Lighting fires, sharing food and company, giving thanks for another good year and praying for an even better year to come. Winter was, and is, the time of hope; celebration, cheer, and charity are its children.
It is no wonder that humankind, over the centuries, regarded Winter as a magical and holy time of year. For it marked the calm before the storm, the riot of growth and life and beauty that would come with melting snow and ice. Given the cold and bleak landscape, is it any wonder that people found reason to celebrate? Lighting fires, sharing food and company, giving thanks for another good year and praying for an even better year to come. Winter was, and is, the time of hope; celebration, cheer, and charity are its children.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Tis' The Season
His name was Jdimytai Damour, he was 34, and you probably do not know who he was, because he was not famous, not a spokesman for anything, not a politician, sports star, or celebrity. He was a big man -- 270 pounds -- and everyone who knew him liked him.
And he died.
He did not die the heroic death of a firefighter struggling to save people from a burning building, or that of a soldier fending off the enemy while his comrades were evacuated to safety. He did not even die the regrettable death of Sean Bell, in a hail of police bullets.
He was trampled. Crushed. Crushed by an insensitive human mob, bent on getting the best holiday deal on toys, TVs, or clothing. A tsunami of humanity, surging into a Valley Stream, NY Wal-Mart as if they were an infantry division hitting the beach at Normandy. And in the end, Jdimytai Damour was a casualty, along with human decency and intelligence.
We sit in the economic crisis strangling this country precisely because of the rampant consumerism that brought about this tragedy. The desire of the masses to possess the latest and greatest merchandise led to the overspending of credit, the purchasing of homes beyond the means of money, and the attempt to spend money that did not exist, in the form of home equity. People have been told repeatedly, daily, by Madison Avenue, that they must possess more and better things.
And this striving for the latest and greatest has overwhelmed the spirit of the season we are now in, a season which creeps closer and closer to Summer as every year passes. The lessons of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and even the Winter Solstice have been swept under the rising tide of holiday sales and bargains galore. In a time of need, when families are watching their greatest asset, their homes, being taken from them, when job cuts leave many on unemployment, unable to pay their bills, and when the need for charity is at its greatest, thousands line up outside stores at obscene hours of the day, all to pinch pennies on gifts for themselves or others. Pennies which do not find their way into the coffers of the charities that could so desperately use them.
While not all people ascribe to Christianity as their belief system of choice, it is interesting to note that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of a man, the Son of God for those who believe, who preached a simple message: we are all in this together. We must reach out to each other, help each other, no matter who we are or what our place in life. We can gain great peace in knowing that we have striven to not only help ourselves, but our fellow human beings. We must come together, and we must be willing to put all differences aside, for the greater good. Also interesting to note that he died at the hands of his fellow men, as was ordained, in order to hopefully save their souls.
Jdimytai Damour's death cannot be said to be as dramatic as that of Christ, but it should carry no less powerful a message. If a man's life must be forfeit, let it be for the good of all, rather than a mere pittance for a few. Let us choose to be better than mere rabble. Let us take the energy of our lust for goods, and turn it to a lust for good. Let us be pained when we cannot help others in their hour of need. When anyone falls, let a hundred hands reach out to pull that person up. Though we may have little money to give, let us give as much of ourselves as we can. Perhaps if we do these things, there can be some redemption for this man's pointless death.
And he died.
He did not die the heroic death of a firefighter struggling to save people from a burning building, or that of a soldier fending off the enemy while his comrades were evacuated to safety. He did not even die the regrettable death of Sean Bell, in a hail of police bullets.
He was trampled. Crushed. Crushed by an insensitive human mob, bent on getting the best holiday deal on toys, TVs, or clothing. A tsunami of humanity, surging into a Valley Stream, NY Wal-Mart as if they were an infantry division hitting the beach at Normandy. And in the end, Jdimytai Damour was a casualty, along with human decency and intelligence.
We sit in the economic crisis strangling this country precisely because of the rampant consumerism that brought about this tragedy. The desire of the masses to possess the latest and greatest merchandise led to the overspending of credit, the purchasing of homes beyond the means of money, and the attempt to spend money that did not exist, in the form of home equity. People have been told repeatedly, daily, by Madison Avenue, that they must possess more and better things.
And this striving for the latest and greatest has overwhelmed the spirit of the season we are now in, a season which creeps closer and closer to Summer as every year passes. The lessons of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and even the Winter Solstice have been swept under the rising tide of holiday sales and bargains galore. In a time of need, when families are watching their greatest asset, their homes, being taken from them, when job cuts leave many on unemployment, unable to pay their bills, and when the need for charity is at its greatest, thousands line up outside stores at obscene hours of the day, all to pinch pennies on gifts for themselves or others. Pennies which do not find their way into the coffers of the charities that could so desperately use them.
While not all people ascribe to Christianity as their belief system of choice, it is interesting to note that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of a man, the Son of God for those who believe, who preached a simple message: we are all in this together. We must reach out to each other, help each other, no matter who we are or what our place in life. We can gain great peace in knowing that we have striven to not only help ourselves, but our fellow human beings. We must come together, and we must be willing to put all differences aside, for the greater good. Also interesting to note that he died at the hands of his fellow men, as was ordained, in order to hopefully save their souls.
Jdimytai Damour's death cannot be said to be as dramatic as that of Christ, but it should carry no less powerful a message. If a man's life must be forfeit, let it be for the good of all, rather than a mere pittance for a few. Let us choose to be better than mere rabble. Let us take the energy of our lust for goods, and turn it to a lust for good. Let us be pained when we cannot help others in their hour of need. When anyone falls, let a hundred hands reach out to pull that person up. Though we may have little money to give, let us give as much of ourselves as we can. Perhaps if we do these things, there can be some redemption for this man's pointless death.
Friday, December 5, 2008
What I'm Wishing For
It's the holiday season again, though with retail creep, the rush toward Christmas is taking on the stature of the latest Presidential campaign, starting way too early and wearing everyone down. Combine this with the recession (which authorities just got around to realizing, started last December), and the job cuts going on, and this promises to be a difficult month to get through for many. For some of us though, we can't help but take the essence of the holiday and make use of it to place some well-intentioned wishes:
1] Here's wishing President-Elect Obama smooth sailing in the first months of his administration. He's going to need help, because the economy is dying a lingering death, the world is still a pretty dangerous place, and there are plenty of people who, unable to deny him his place in history, are rooting for him to fail.
2] Here's wishing the Detroit auto industry does not get its bailout. Oh, I know, there will be economic devastation, even longer unemployment lines, and a general failure of Western civilization. But the hand-writing was on the wall in the mid-1970s, when OPEC made it quite clear that they ran our country, and since then, the Big Three and the UAW have done very little to create cheap, economical transportation, even as the Japanese continue their excellence in that arena. It's time for the old to be swept away.
3] Here's wishing the government would pull the plug on this $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. See 2] for the same basic destruction of our way of life, but do the phrases "Savings and Loan Crisis," "Tech Bubble," and "Enron" ring a bell? If we're not going to bail out Detroit, then Wall Street doesn't deserve it either. Let those firms fail, as any business that is mis-managed should. I don't think my pocket, or the pockets of my children and grandchildren, need to be picked so some CEO can continue to get rich running his corporation into the ground. Take the money and fund everyone's unemployment benefits for a year, spend money on retraining workers, rebuilding our infrastructure, and invest in industries that will take us into the future (renewable energy, fusion research, clean transportation, recycling).
4] A wish for peace in Iraq. May it come in the form of a cloud of dust being raised as columns of Humvees and M-1A1s head for the ports and the airports, carrying our weary soldiers home for the rest and the accolades they so richly deserve.
5] A wish for Osama Bin-Laden to wake up one morning to find a gun muzzle pressed against the side of his head by a United States Marine.
6] Here's wishing an end to intolerance, in all its forms (racism, sexism, religious zealotry, etc.). We are all humans; we are all together in this, like it or not. We need not like each other, but we must learn to tolerate each other and to work together to ensure that our world is safe from destruction at our own hands.
7] A special wish: that in this season of caring and giving, that each of us digs a little deeper into our pockets, our closets, our pantries, to ensure that no one has to be cold and hungry. It should not take the devastation of a hurricane or an earthquake or a tsunami for us to do what we can to eliminate want from this world.
8] A wish that everyone, no matter their circumstance, no matter what hard times they face, no matter what pains they have endured, have some peace as this year comes to a close.
These are just some of the things I am wishing for.
1] Here's wishing President-Elect Obama smooth sailing in the first months of his administration. He's going to need help, because the economy is dying a lingering death, the world is still a pretty dangerous place, and there are plenty of people who, unable to deny him his place in history, are rooting for him to fail.
2] Here's wishing the Detroit auto industry does not get its bailout. Oh, I know, there will be economic devastation, even longer unemployment lines, and a general failure of Western civilization. But the hand-writing was on the wall in the mid-1970s, when OPEC made it quite clear that they ran our country, and since then, the Big Three and the UAW have done very little to create cheap, economical transportation, even as the Japanese continue their excellence in that arena. It's time for the old to be swept away.
3] Here's wishing the government would pull the plug on this $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. See 2] for the same basic destruction of our way of life, but do the phrases "Savings and Loan Crisis," "Tech Bubble," and "Enron" ring a bell? If we're not going to bail out Detroit, then Wall Street doesn't deserve it either. Let those firms fail, as any business that is mis-managed should. I don't think my pocket, or the pockets of my children and grandchildren, need to be picked so some CEO can continue to get rich running his corporation into the ground. Take the money and fund everyone's unemployment benefits for a year, spend money on retraining workers, rebuilding our infrastructure, and invest in industries that will take us into the future (renewable energy, fusion research, clean transportation, recycling).
4] A wish for peace in Iraq. May it come in the form of a cloud of dust being raised as columns of Humvees and M-1A1s head for the ports and the airports, carrying our weary soldiers home for the rest and the accolades they so richly deserve.
5] A wish for Osama Bin-Laden to wake up one morning to find a gun muzzle pressed against the side of his head by a United States Marine.
6] Here's wishing an end to intolerance, in all its forms (racism, sexism, religious zealotry, etc.). We are all humans; we are all together in this, like it or not. We need not like each other, but we must learn to tolerate each other and to work together to ensure that our world is safe from destruction at our own hands.
7] A special wish: that in this season of caring and giving, that each of us digs a little deeper into our pockets, our closets, our pantries, to ensure that no one has to be cold and hungry. It should not take the devastation of a hurricane or an earthquake or a tsunami for us to do what we can to eliminate want from this world.
8] A wish that everyone, no matter their circumstance, no matter what hard times they face, no matter what pains they have endured, have some peace as this year comes to a close.
These are just some of the things I am wishing for.
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